For many purposes it is desirable for an organization to maintain an active mailing list of current and former members, participants or graduates. As members move, marry, etc., some typically become "lost". Different efforts may be undertaken to find current addresses for such lost members. For example, in connection with school or college alumni and alumnae reunions, a reunion committee may send out a mailing that includes a "lost" list. However, these efforts are typically constrained within a single graduating class and the whole list, which may be quite lengthy, is simply sent to each recipient. In the past there has been no practical way to either tailor the lists, or to use the opportunity to also seek information on lost members of other graduating classes. In other circumstances mailings may be sent out to request individual information about the recipient, as part of an alumni/alumnae directory publication project, for example. Again, there has been no practical or economical way to derive a listing of a desired number of relevant lost alumni about whom the mailing recipient would be likely to have information.
Thus, while an associated group of individuals may have available a variety of items of personal data on former members and may even send mailings to active members, there has been no practicable way to use such data to effectively gather information and update mailing lists on an automated basis.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide methods and systems for analyzing and utilizing available information to enhance the collection of information and updating of mailing lists on an automated and cost effective basis.
It is a further object to provide such methods and systems wherein individuals with known addresses can be sent requests for information including a listing of a predetermined number of lost individuals selected in view of commonality of personal data items.
It is a still further object to provide such methods and systems wherein subsequent mailings to individual recipients include listing of lost individuals not included on prior lists, who may be selected on the basis of data item commonality criteria different from the first mailing.